Conclusions — #MeToo Poetry

CONTENT WARNING:

The following poems concern themselves with themes and topics of sexual assault, sexual harassment, abuse, and sexism. Please continue reading with this in mind.

Editor’s Introduction:

For the past two weeks, survivors of sexual assault have been under siege by coverage and discussions surrounding the Supreme Court appointment hearings for Brett Kavanaugh. These events, broadcasted loudly and relentlessly across media outlets and social networks, act as a daily reminder of the violence that these survivors endured. Processing this trauma proves difficult even at the best of times and under the most helpful circumstances. In the face of the vitriolic, dehumanizing hate directed at survivors in the wake of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh, the process becomes nearly impossible. This week, Ray Osborn asks us to consider the thoughts and practices that allow for this sort of abuse to exist. Although only one of the poems, “Nacreous Conclusions”, is about rape, the other three poems are about the kinds of attitudes that allow for the continued acceptance of sexual assault as an excusable norm by our government and society. These poems explore perspectives on being a survivor, the experience of objectification, and what it’s like to be thought of as “less than” or “not even” human. Osborn has written both a testimony and an indictment.

To survivors, from our October contributor, Ray Osborn, and the Broadly Textual Editing Staff, We Believe You!

St. Augustine’s Conclusions

This is the lie that he told:
the soul is the haven of
memory, home for thought.
In the beginning, she liked
to talk about world politics.
 
     Now she will only speak
     when her lover desires her
     to speak. She once spoke
     about the problems of racism,
     environmentalism, fascism,
 
          orientalism, religion, and
          poverty. They were all the
          result of human needs not
          being met. The simplicity
          of it made her forget about
 
               her own situation, how
               sexism takes the soul and
               finds it a home, foster child.
               He brought her opal and
               pearl but she did not quickly
 
                    forget who she had been.
                    Her body foraged a land,
                    subterranean and hidden,
                    in the past anecdotes of
                    what she once was, lithe
 
                         building made from sand
                         where her soma waited
                         to run dry into the water
                         and disperse secretly
                         beyond where he was able
 
                              to touch her. He lied to her,
                              tells her he owns her body,
                              demands her making. He told
                              her she was like a fine system
                              made from gracious thought.  

Uncertain Conclusions

The mysteries that hold
her are tacit, are bridal
exasperations. Any
conclusion made must
be an uncertain one.
 
     It is eerie feminine
     unfulfillment driven
     by the light of this
     thin, careful buzz. I am
     uncertain. If you were
 
          to hold me close so
          that I forgot who you
          are, she would whisper
          frail warnings against
          the noise that comes
 
               from love. She might
               be right to ignore you.
               I cannot bear to leave
               the tangent of your sighs.
               Of her refusal to show
 
                    anything on a clear grid,
                    you are lit to wonder at her
                    certain mechanical ukase
                    to leave. It is how I could
                    be wrong about myself,
 
                         you say, as though my
                         inner disposition to make
                         truth regarding myself
                         is merely patination,
                         accumulation of particles
 
                              shed from mechanics of
                              my softer parts’ action.
                              These are reactions to
                              inner inconsistencies,
                              you say, as if with soul.

Nacreous Conclusions

You don’t cull your words
carefully, and touch my hip
with the ease of someone
unable to scrutinize space.
It would be permissible,
 
     the way you touch me with
     the impunity of your male
     body, if I had time to think.
     I am a shell, an oceanic rind,
     examined and used by senses,
 
          a hint to your animalian eyes.
          This is a warning sign to your
          handsy phallic knowledge,
          careful certainty, thoughtful
          considerations of the fact
 
               of me. You lower yourself
               into my orifices without
               knowing that I refuse to let
               you out, no exit for the gaze
               that breaks under my words.
 
                    I explain myself to myself,
                    transpose woman through you.
                    It is my nacreous shell-shock
                    in the making of beauty which
                    you do not understand, try to
 
                         gather me. I slip from your
                         eyes in iridescence, deny you
                         entrance to my play in mirth.
                         I am pushing you away, you,
                         in midst of being found out.

Hope

When I fracture myself
into bits of wreckage
I call out the sun. I must
say to myself a thing
slung low and pious in
 
     the sky. I must always
     fight against tessellating it
     with my bits as something
     to behold. The sun is a
     meagre lover and can’t
 
          hold my body as I can.
          Once I thought my body
          was beautiful and could
          jar the sun. Only now I
          look and I see sunlight
 
               collecting me, putting me
               neatly away. I wonder
               who I fractured myself
               for. These glimmers, they
               were me once. I call out
 
                    an aubade but there is
                    no arrival until the
                    plains latch dry with
                    self-doubt. Am I just a
                    system? Tell me I am alive.

Ray Osborn [a Creative Writing MFA at Syracuse University] is sick of writing these autobiographies of the soul stuck in hell, for lack of a better word. In general, Ray is interested in not talking about one’s self and, if you must know, Ray’s work focuses on ekphrasis, elegy, and visibility.